Fragile
by Fujiko1601
Summary: Hinata had a way to push Neji's buttons even without doing anything. A story about stolen scrolls, different forms of seduction and the dangers of the colour pink. Neji/Hina


Rating: PG-13.  
Pairing: Neji/Hinata  
Word Count: 3501  
Summary: Hinata had a way to push Neji's buttons even without doing anything. A story about stolen scrolls, different forms of seduction and the dangers of the colour pink.

Beta: darkicedragon

Written for springkink challenge community. The prompt was "seduction - In the right hands, even weakness became a form of power".

* * *

**Fragile**

"Four seals." Neji's voice sounded unusually loud in the silence.

He and Hinata were examining the building where the stolen scroll was supposed to be through their hotel room wall.

"There is something strange about the one on the left," Hinata said. She was doing that _thing_ with her fingers again. Neji had to restrict himself to not slap them away. She remained completely oblivious, like always.

"Double trap?"

"I don't know." She paused. "Something about it... isn't right."

"I'll go in alone. Hinata-sama, you should stay outside unnoticed and back me up when necessary." _It won't be necessary._

Hinata seemed to have something to say, but she changed her mind, bit her lip and nodded. "I'll be there."

"Whatever happens, don't use the kind of techniques that call attention," he reminded her.

It was supposed to be an easy mission, at least as easy as level B missions went. Neji hated teaming up with Hinata; her safety was highest priority to him and it didn't allow him to concentrate on the mission the way he usually could. Taking her with him seemed dangerously like mixing private life with work, but you didn't go against the Hokage's orders. How he missed his own team - even Lee would suffice.

They left separately – Hinata first to take care of some preparations, leaving Neji to check out. A few minutes later, he arrived at the two-story house on the edge of town. According to their information, the stolen scroll had been delivered here and their mission was to retrieve it before it reached the hands of the enemy's client.

Taking care of the guards was easy, suspiciously easy. It was obvious they were ninja, just not very good ones - even a genin team could have handled them. He was only vaguely aware of Hinata well hidden somewhere in the shadows, concealing his entry with genjutsu. He made a conscious effort not to look at her with his sight – he had work to do.

The only place where the stolen scroll could be was behind four concealing seals where even his eyes could not see. He studied the first one: it looked quite basic, the kind he could have handled right after graduating from the academy. The easiness of the whole affair started to unnerve him and he decided to check the surroundings once more, just in case. Making full use of his bloodline limit, he observed everything and everyone within a few blocks away. And then he noticed her.

Hinata was sitting on a bench just a few houses away, knitting something outrageously pink in a yukata of the same colour. She, who almost never wore bright colours anywhere else, had decided to do so here. A small white kitten - one of her summons - was playing with her knitting threads. She didn't seem to notice and continued making the unidentifiable pink monstrosity. Hinata had a knack of going against his words, so he shouldn't have been too surprised. He dragged his attention away from her; he had to finish this mission fast before she got them into trouble. Drawing attention to oneself was the last thing a ninja on mission wanted, unless you were Uzumaki Naruto, but that was besides the point.

Two of the other seals were connected, by extremely thin chakra threads that were easy to miss, but there was not much that could escape his superior eyes. Regardless of fact that the careful cutting of the threads demanded his full attention, Neji couldn't help but notice Hinata rising to admire the flowers in the soil bed across the street. She still had her knitting in her hands. This, combined with the efforts of the kitten, created a tangled trail of pink all over the place. A mess of pink threads and... chakra. The chakra threads were very thin, even thinner than the ones connecting the seals, and invisible to normal eyes, but there was no doubt of it. Neji almost laughed at himself, and maybe would have if this was not a mission. He should have known. He would trust her and finish this mission. Fate liked to prove him wrong over and over again when it came to her. It probably made some kind of twisted karmic sense.

He cut the final thread. That left only the last seal: the one Hinata had been worried about. He recognised the kanji on it – it was one of the easiest ones, the kind only incredibly unskilled ninja would use unless one was in a hurry. An experienced eye could see a technique underneath it: a lethal jutsu activated by any kind of touch. The seal needed to be isolated with another seal above it before he could do anything else. The familiar pattern of handsigns, ground in to muscle-memory, and then he applied the pre-made seals. It all came so easily, it looked almost like a dance, a sign of a well-trained ninja.

Sparing a glance to check on Hinata before the final deactivation, he noticed that three civilians were getting suspiciously close to her. A look under their clothes confirmed that they were no civilians, unless civilians carried ninja equipment in this town. Hinata seemed to have already noticed - she was the one on the watch, after all. They appeared to be in no hurry and didn't even try to conceal their approach. Neji decided he had just enough time to get the scroll before going to Hinata's aid.

The second he removed the seal that he had just deactivated, he realised what a grave mistake he had made - there had been a fifth seal cleverly hidden into the second one. The next moment, Neji could then see Hinata running to him, the three enemies right behind her. Strange plants grew from the ground to reach for her legs and wound themselves around them; he could also see the same plants starting to reach for him through the floor. And then, somehow, Hinata was there beside him and she wrapped her arms around him.

"Help me!" she whispered fearfully. "They are too strong for me. You know how weak I am." She started to cry, not attempting to hold the tears back, tightening her hold on him even more. There was something monumentally disturbing about the whole situation.

Neji tried to tear himself free from her to be able to see the enemy – for some reason his sight was not working the way it should - but she didn't move the tiniest bit. He tried again and suddenly there was sharp pain in his back. It took him a moment before he realised that Hinata had grown claws just like her little cats and was sinking them into his back slowly.

"Do you think I've forgotten what you did to me? How you tried to kill me." Her voice was an emotionless whisper, all traces of tears gone. Her face looked like porcelain doll's. "This is not enough," she said. "Maybe I should activate that seal of yours. Do you know what true pain is?"

xox

Hinata had been right in her suspicions - the pair of fruit sellers and the paperboy, who had kept their distance so far, suddenly all started to make their way towards her, while trying to not seem obvious that they were. There were only three of them; maybe she could keep them away long enough for Neji to get the scroll and then they could leave this place. Those three didn't look powerful enough to stop _two_ Hyuuga. She checked the surroundings with her Byakugan just in case. The situation was more serious than she had thought - there was another suspicious group a few blocks away, larger than this one, and at that moment she saw Neji fall prey to a genjutsu trap. She calculated her options. There was no chance of her defeating them all alone, even with her bloodline limit. There was only one thing she could do. She took a deep breath, preparing herself.

After what felt like an eternity and a blink of an eye at once, the three men reached her.

"I know of you," the one who looked like he was the leader said matter-of-factly. He was a big man with a lot of blond hair. Probably taijutsu type, she guessed from his build. "You are the Hyuuga princess. You come with us."

Hinata rose from her bench clutching her knitting tightly in trembling hands. "You… you are mistaken." Her voice wavered slightly.

The man laughed. "Don't try to fool me. I can recognise those Hyuuga eyes of yours."

The next moment he barely avoided two kunai thrown behind his back, twisting out the way. One of the knives hit the flowerbed, cutting down a single lily, the other disappeared behind a corner. A second Hinata in grey and black ninja gear stood there, a look of determination on her face.

"You are mistaken, I won't come with you," Hinata said resolutely. She threw more kunai, one for every enemy-nin. The image of the first Hinata in the pink yukata wavered and disappeared.

The youngest looking enemy with red hair caught her kunai with ease. "So the rumours are true, you _are_ weak," he said gleefully. "Boss, I'll take her on myself; she's a waste of energy."

The leader took a step back and relaxed his stance. "Be quick about it and don't forget the mission." The last, blue haired enemy-nin looked rather annoyed, but he didn't move either.

"Alrighty then. Let's see what a Hyuuga princess can do," he said, jumping onto a roof and throwing a cloud of shuriken at her.

Hinata avoided them easily, frantically trying to figure out what to do next. Summoning bigger cats for help was not an option, not unless she wanted the whole town to know that there was a ninja battle going on. She jumped up for better view. A small fishpond a couple of houses to her left caught her attention. That might work. Water Cage technique was not a good option either, but at least it wouldn't destroy entire parts of town. If used correctly, it _might _be subtle enough to remain unnoticed. Neji would still not be happy. She started the seals when she was stopped by something behind her. All the shuriken that had landed behind her dissolved into sand and suddenly she was attacked by a huge cloud of dust. In a way, it was like fighting against Shino and his bugs.

For a moment, she fell into familiar routine. It was not a big cloud she was fighting; it was a lot of individual tiny spots of chakra and she knew how to deal with them. With a speed that had come with years of training and good chakra control, you had to manipulate chakra just like _that _and strike like _this _and alter it like _this _until your opponent had lost all control over his projectiles. Of course, it wouldn't have worked so easily with Shino, but Shino was Shino and his bugs were actually alive. But this meant her opponent was an Earth type and this was the worst possible match for her. Using some of his own sand as a shield, she turned her attack directly towards the boy. She managed to land a few hits, but not enough to stop his use of chakra.

"Ouchie, you almost got me," came his voice from ground level again, followed by a new cloud of shuriken. "Kidding! I know better than that. You don't get into a close range combat with a Hyuuga. Even with a defective one." His laugh sounded like a cruel kid's who had caught some poor little creature with intentions to torture it.

Hinata chose to follow him down. If she cut his chakra down now, she could save herself the trouble of dealing with another cloud of sand. She charged the redhead, throwing a pair of offhand kunai at his two companions. Both ducked, but they kept their promise and didn't interfere. This time she was able to complete the seals for the Water Cage. The boy blocked it with Earth Shield, knocking Hinata off her feet with it.

"And here I thought you might actually provide some challenge to the fight," he mocked her. "Every ninja worth their salt knows that you don't attack an Earth type with water techniques." He walked to the still lying Hinata... and froze midstep seeming completely oblivious to the world. Hinata pulled herself up, breathing hard.

"I... cannot... let you stop us," she managed between pants. A fast strike with her right hand had her opponent coughing up blood. She didn't have time to straighten up before she felt a kunai being held at her neck.

"That's enough, Hyuuga girl." The leader had chosen that moment to attack her himself. A quick glance at the third man confirmed that the boy was not the only one who stepped on her pink genjutsu threads, she was rather surprised none of them had noticed that her kunai had not landed randomly. If there hadn't been any back-up... She checked them. Still out of normal sight, but ready to strike at any moment now.

"Please, don't hurt me," she whispered.

"Your cuteness doesn't work on me," the man sneered, getting a tight grip on her shoulders and turning her slightly to look at her face. "You know, you really suck at seduction. Maybe I should make sure you never try again. Before I get your special eyes that is."

He cut her cheek, dragging it closer to her eyes. Hinata screamed.

xox

It had to be genjutsu. Neji had tried to stop all his chakra circulation and the fake Hinata had almost faded, but not quite. He desperately tried to see past her or to hear something, something from the real world to be an anchor for him that he could use to break out of the jutsu.

That's when he heard a scream. The weakened jutsu had no grasp on him any more after he heard it and it faded away. What he saw in its place would have had him laughing if the situation hadn't been so serious. The scroll that had gotten them in to this mess was a fake. Now that the seals that had blocked their view were gone, he could clearly see the empty scroll behind them. He still stuffed it into his bag, just in case it was cleverly disguised and ran for Hinata.

xox

The enemy-nin had moved on to Hinata's second cheek, dragging the sharp blade across her whole cheek, leaving behind a deep, ugly cut. This time she didn't scream.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly.

"Apologising won't help you," the enemy-nin said coldly. "Your eyes are next."

The next thing he knew was sharp pain in his neck that didn't let him breathe. He struggled to remain standing but failed. The Hinata in his arms dissolved into nothing, revealing another one behind her, off to his side. But she was not the one that had attacked him. Falling down, he managed to look behind him. The Hinata in pink was back, holding a blood covered knitting needle.

"You are mistaken," she said, repeating her words from before. "I've read your Bingo book entry and you umm... have to die. I'm sorry." She didn't look like she meant it.

She was supposed to be far below the rank to be reading Bingo books, the leader thought woozily. She was supposed to be the single unprotected and weak Hyuuga with a Byakugan that Konoha allowed to run around for some reason. She was not supposed to be able to hide bunshin behind genjutsu to hide real bodies in pink. She was not supposed to kill people with knitting needles. She was... he never finished that thought. In fact, he would never finish anything anymore.

Hinata turned to smile at Neji, who had just reached the scene. "I knew that trap wouldn't keep you for long. Which... Which of them are mine?" she asked hesitantly. She was blushing like she had asked something terribly inappropriate.

Neji looked at the remaining enemies finally making it towards them and weighed his options. There weren't more than a dozen ninja there.

"I'll take them all."

"Um. Yes. Please." She released the bunshin and wiped the needle clean with the fallen leader's sleeve. "The scroll?" she asked.

"Probably a fake." Was she really this obedient or was she mocking him? True, he had superior rank in this mission, but they both knew how little that mattered – the Hyuuga laws were far above Konoha's. Sometimes he missed the old, truly timid Hinata. Once he had hated her for it; then he had become one of those encouraging her to gain some self-confidence and now that she had, he didn't know how he felt about it. He turned his frustration against the enemy. One to twelve was no kind of disadvantage, not for him, not when the enemy was this weak.

Maybe he had underestimated them a bit, but he eventually won and came out of it as a stronger ninja. Overcoming yourself daily was the make of a ninja great.

"Umm..."

Still gasping for breath he turned to Hinata.

"I think I found the scroll. The leader had it on him."

This was another reason Neji didn't like doing missions with her: she was so frustrating and she was not even doing anything she wasn't supposed to.

xox

It didn't take long to get out of the bloodstained street and a few hours through the treetops had them a safe distance away.

"Do you do it on purpose?" Neji finally asked when they had stopped for night.

There it was again, the deer caught in headlights look. "'Use everything you have to seduce your enemy into false sense of security, including your weaknesses and the way other people see you'. Is that what you mean?"

The next moment, she found herself pressed into a tree.

Neji breathed in her scent. This was timid and weak Hinata, who he could beat at any time. Hinata, who killed dangerous men with knitting needles. She was here, completely in his power and yet he couldn't brush off the feeling that _she _was the one pulling the strings.

"Interesting choice of words, Hinata-sama," he murmured.

"They are... his. That man, he thought that I was trying to seduce him. In that other way." She hid her face into his hair. "Told me that I was bad at it."

"And then you killed him." He wished she had kept the pink yukata, but it was not the best option for travelling, especially when there was a possibility for pursuit. It would have been so much easier to get off. She had too many buttons, zippers and levels of clothing.

"I did." Her breath was warm on his neck.

"You could do it in other ways.You _can_ fight." There was a sentence that he, once upon a time, would never have believed that he would ever say. "You do it on purpose. You put yourself in danger and flaunt your weakness like a weapon to use." He lifted her chin, forcing her to look at him. "And you know how I feel about it."

She adjusted her arms around him and tapped lightly on a particular spot on his back. They both knew if she used Gentle Fist there, he would be dead. "Like this?" She could have looked quite devious if she wasn't so flushed

Neji shivered in a not entirely unpleasant way. Sudden realisation took him by a complete surprise. "Is that why you do it?"

"Um... I..." She was blushing furiously and stuttering again. He wanted to hit her or kiss her, _something_ to remind her _not_ to doit. He went for the latter. If she was trying to seduce him, her methods were dangerously effective.

There were reasons he didn't like doing missions with her - this was the most prominent one. It was impossible to handle missions in a professional manner with her around; he had long since given up on trying. Sooner or later they would end up like this. Always.

"Do you think the whole thing was a set-up to get the Byakugan?" What kind of question was that to ask right now?

"Later," he whispered in her ear.

There was time - they had killed them all and it would take a while before someone caught up with them. They could think later why getting in was so easy, why the enemy went for Hinata right after he had been trapped, why they seemed to know some things about the Hyuuga, but not enough. Right now, there were those deceptively weak hands holding him, soft kisses and power games of a different kind.

"Mm... Yes. Later." This was not the reason behind her actions, but she rather liked the side effects.


End file.
